Joint cosmology seminar at MIT:

Tuesday, March 4, 2014, 2:30 pm
Cosman Seminar Room
Center for Theoretical Physics
Building 6C, Room 6C-442
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Refreshments at 2:00 in the same room

Ultra-relativistic Soliton Collisions

Mustafa Amin
Cambridge

Abstract:

Solitons appear in many physical models, from scalar field theories in the early universe to optical fibres. What happens when solitons collide? I will show that ultra-relativistic collisions are exceptionally simple. For relativistic scalar field theories, I will present a kinematic, perturbative framework which is not restricted to small deviations around integrable cases. Our method works best in the high velocity limit when simulations are most difficult. Based on this framework, I will present the nontrivial leading order results for collisions of (1+1) dimensional kinks. I will end with some potential applications.